Joshua Vega-Rodriguez

Instructor Prusso

Intro to Humanities

Preflection: Social Justice

Frida Berrigan is a peace activist with an active voice when it comes to violence. She is
coming to speak at SLCC about non-violent activities involving the Christian religion. Her
presentation will focus on the Jonah House which is a forty-year experiment involving hundreds
of people with non-violent protests. The topic will focus on social justice and religion. My topic
for the Civic Engagement will be centralized on social justice.

My knowledge on social justice is very vague apart from the Civil Rights movement
where real injustice and discrimination was taking place on a nationwide scale. I’ve heard of a
recent social justice movement that is taking place throughout college campuses. Not only in the
United States but also in Canada. From what i’ve gathered from youtube and podcasts, I’ve
been given a picture that is not in line with the social justice movement that was led by Dr.
Martin Luther King. I hope to get a different understanding on social justice and what actions
must be taken to achieve certain goals.

The community at large would benefit from a well informed individual that recognizes the
best steps to take, in regards to achieving a goal. My community at large would benefit
depending on my decision to join a movement and take action after i’ve done more research. I’ll
also say that there are certain situations in the SLC community that could really use not only my
help but the help of others as well. Such as the homeless problem that has haunted utah and
only until recently has there been a project set on helping the homeless and getting them
integrated back into the workforce. The event could help persuade me and give me that final
push to lend a hand to those who are often forgotten.

Social Justice, as I stated earlier, relates to the first chapter that we coved at the
beginning of the semester. It should fall under the category of civil disobedience. Setting a call
to action for “injustice” in our communities and country at large. True injustice was in the form of
segregation and the terrible discrimination towards black americans throughout the course of
the 20th century. Certain events such as the riots that ensued at UC Berkeley which all started
with the university hosting events for conservative commentators, in which “social justice
warriors” rallied and protested against the commentator all over a difference in political opinion/
ideology. Such intolerable and embarrassing acts cannot be supported on any college campus,
where the exchange of ideas and civil discourse have to be nurtured in order for students to
engage with one another and find common ground on an issue. Civil disobedience is the best
form of protest, as demonstrated by Martin Luther King, Ghandi etc; social justice falls along the
same line, when and if executed correctly.